(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for fabricating a 3D (three-dimensional) scaffold and a fabrication method thereof, and more particularly, to a fabrication apparatus for forming a scaffold for tissue regeneration and a fabrication method using the same.
(b) Description of the Related Art
When an organ or tissue in a human body is damaged, a cell, a medical scaffold, or the like, is provided to effectively regenerate the damaged organ or tissue. The tissue regeneration scaffold is required to have such physiological activities that it is physically stable at an implanted part and can adjust regenerative efficacy, and also, it is to be decomposed in a living body after new tissue is formed, and in this case, a degradation product should not have virulence.
Such a tissue regeneration scaffold is fabricated as a sponge-type scaffold using a polymer having a certain strength and shape or as a nanofiber- or gel-type scaffold having a matrix form. A technique in which a cell culture scaffold is transplanted to regenerate tissue in a living body by using self-healing power is called regenerative medicine or tissue engineering.
A method of regenerating articula cartilage is an example of tissue technology, in forms a prosthesis using a cartilage cell as a scaffold is formed, and the prosthesis is transplanted to a damaged part to thus allow the cartilage cell to be regenerated. The prosthesis is formed as a scaffold configured to have a 3D shape by using a cartilage cell, or the like, as a seed.
In order to form such a scaffold having a 3D shape, a rapid prototyping scheme, and in particular, a laminated (or stacked) rapid prototyping scheme, is used.
The laminated rapid prototyping scheme is used to process a divided sheet into a plurality of layers and sequentially stacking them to obtain a prototype having a desired shape. That is, a 3D shape modeled through a CAD system is divided into a plurality of sheets having a certain thickness, changing them into slice data, prototyping a plate-shaped sheet on the basis of the slice data, and stacking them to form a prototype.
The conventional 3D scaffold fabrication method, however, has shortcomings in that, since a 3D shape is modeled and divided into a plurality of sheets having a certain thickness and the plurality of divided sheets are sequentially stacked to form a prototype, much time is required for dividing and stacking the sheets.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.